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In June 2015, we launched our annual CAP THAT! campaign with a simple message: turn the captions on when watching video content in class. This year we focused on the significance of using captions to benefit even more students, including students with English as an Additional Language, those who have reading difficulties, children on the autism spectrum, as well as students who are Deaf or hearing impaired. Amongst Australian schools nationwide, this equates to over one million kids in total.

This downloadable brochure is available for teachers, librarians and teachers of the Deaf to use and share, explaining how captions provide literacy, learning and accessibility benefits for all students. Available information includes:

The use of captions to help with literacy is supported by a range of studies and approaches. As we approach National Literacy and Numeracy Week and the culmination of the CAP THAT! campaign, we contrast two studies on captions and literacy—a small-scale American study and a massive program in India targeting hundreds of millions.

Parents are a key ally in providing a supported captioning experience, according to Kate Kennedy from Parents of Deaf Children (PODC), the NSW-based parent organisation providing support, information and advocacy services to families of children with hearing loss.

While the focus of the organisation is on supporting families, it often works with schools and classroom teachers to ensure they are aware of the needs of deaf children in the classroom.

For students with diverse learning needs, the use of captioned content in the classroom is the best way to gain access to context and information for learning experiences using media. When captions are not available, the fall-back position for teachers has often been the use of transcripts.

Access and opportunity combine with the use of captioned video in the classroom to provide necessary context, as well enduring information, after the initial learning experience passes.

Considering that captions are really just words used in a particular way to provide access and meaning, it challenges us as educators to ponder how we can use the opportunity these words provide. The written word has been used to teach concepts for thousands of years, so let’s look at words in the context of access. The use of captioned video ‘turns a light on’ to expose the hidden treasure – information – which lies within the video. Further learning for all students can be facilitated by releasing that knowledge in a variety of forms.

Discovery Kids is Australia’s only dedicated educational channel for primary-school aged children (5-12) and a sponsor of Media Access Australia's national CAP THAT! campaign. From its launch on Foxtel in 2014, 100% of the content on Discovery Kids has been captioned.